1053914 - [UX] define next short/mid term plan for search ux improvements

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Madhava Enros [:madhava]]

Having worked through the list of quick wins for 33/34 here: https://firefox-ux.etherpad.mozilla.org/search-buckets

I want for us to go through the set of proposals, including:

- Bug 1041736 - [UX] Visual design for Awesome Bar layout cleanup
- Bug 1041747 - Allow user to disable/enable display of Search Suggestions in Awesome Bar
- Bug 1041757 - Make Awesome Bar items draggable
- the set of ideas in the "Amazebar" proposal

And explain a general direction, or set of directions, and identify a set of next things to build. In other words, what's the next crop of short- and mid-term improvements we should make, and what are they heading towards.

Comment 1

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

Attachment: Search Improvement Plan - 01

I went through the search-buckets etherpad, all of the relevant open search bugs (that I could find) and various other historical documents and proposals. 

This document highlights some of the problems our current search situation suffers from. It then outlines three chunks of work for short-, mid- and long-term improvements.


-Document Summary-

Problem(s):
- Multiple similar but different inputs create confusion and redundancy
- The Awesome Bar offers no help to new users or for new searches

How do we fix it?
Short-Term (Step 1):
- Make the Awesome Bar the best interface for finding what you are searching for
-- Bug 951624 — Search action feedback
-- Bug 958204 — Search suggest
-- Bug 958204 — Call-out result search term
-- Bug 1040923 — Improve visual design for results
-- Fixes for URL heuristic problems (e.g. fancy.js or porcupine.doc should search, not try and resolve a domain)


Mid-Term (Step 2):
- Converge on a unified Search Access Point
-- Move Search Bar to Customization Palette
-- Combine New Tab and Home
-- Visually tie together In-Content Search Field and Awesome Bar


Long-Term Planning (Step 3):
- Help users find what they want faster; no matter where that information lives 
- & 
- Surface relevant search information
-- Next Step: Prototype a next-gen search interface

Comment 2

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Comment on attachment 8483657 [details]
Search Improvement Plan - 01

Capturing here what Stephen and I talked about:

- We're on track for the short term stuff.
- The mid term goal of combining search access points depends greatly on how successful we are in moving people from the search bar to the awesomebar. Our short term efforts should help with this and we need to monitor the data coming in. There is, however, not a lot we can actively do here.
- The UX team will start prototyping some of the long-term ideas we have in the meantime.